Claiming my place : coming of age in the shadow of the Holocaust
(Book)

The true story of a young Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust by escaping to Nazi Germany and hiding in plain sight.

Barbara Reichmann-- once known as Gucia Gomolinska-- was a Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and '30s. Her world was turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and established a Jewish ghetto in her town. Gucia's blond hair and fair skin give her an advantage, and she faced a harrowing choice: risk the uncertain horrors of deportation to a concentration camp, or certain death if she is caught resisting. She adopted the gentile name Danuta Barbara Tanska, and left to claim a new life for herself. The final portion of this narrative, written by her daughter Helen, completes Barbara's journey from her immigration to America until her natural, timely death.